Here's the second chapter! It's pretty rough as is, but it's here all the same. I hope you enjoy it. It's about Zoe's re-arrival at her school, and it also introduces a few key characters. Thanks for reading. Also, please comment on the update blog with ideas for a cool chapter name! Black Hole Eyes was submitted by Jenna :D Thanks a lot!
Chapter 2: Black Hole Eyes
The town of Amati is an illusion. The illusion is this: that you live in a kind of small town, with locally run stores and good schools and a park. But the reality is that it’s only seven miles from Hollywood, California, and the better part of Amati’s residents are famous. Famous people who like to pretend they live in a small town.
And it’s an upscale small town, too. It’s got huge houses like ours and really trendy shops for every want and need. Plus, it’s got Redthorn Academy, California’s first “improved learning” private school and one of the most expensive schools in the country. My school.
It came into sight as Ashlinn maneuvered the Ferrari out of Solstice Lane and onto Lock Road. The school grounds were extensive, taking up a ginormous diamond of land. The school itself was right in the center, and pretty impressive to look at. It’s gigantic and modern-looking, built out of a glittery-looking stone called mica. There’s a half-circle drive that goes from the road to the huge silver gates and back to the road again. Ashlinn steered into the drive, humming cheerfully.
“See you later,” she said in a sing-song voice.
“Yep.” I got out of the car and counted the eighteen security cameras hidden in bushes, trees, statues, and flowers. I quickly located a nineteenth, new one in the newly installed water fountain right away. Like I said, I notice things.
Redthorn is a very secure school. You can’t get in unless you’re supposed to, and you can’t get out unless you’re supposed to. For lack of a better analogy, it’s sort of like a prison, except infinitely more fun to be in. The security cameras are just the beginning.
I walked up to the left side of the gates, where there was a small rectangular panel about the size of a football. There were three selections on the touch screen: faculty, student, and visitor. I tapped “student”.
The screen went green and I pressed my left hand to the surprisingly cool surface. There was a faint hurrrrr-ing noise, and then the screen flashed. I took my hand away to reveal the word “accepted”. Then, I did the same with my right hand.
“Are you Shadow, Zoe?” the screen now read. A tiny rod with a little microphone on the end came out of the panel. A lie detector.
“Yes,” I said quite truthfully into the microphone.
The gates opened and I stepped through. All of this had happened quickly, in a span of less than six seconds. Usually there was a small line to get clearance, but today I was early.
Actually, by the looks of the empty courtyard, I was the first one in. The courtyard was large and beautiful, big enough to host the whole student body. It felt so weird when it was empty. I like crowds, where I don’t stand out, where it’s easier to blend in.
I walked toward a bench slowly, taking everything in… the lush plants, the scattered ebony benches, the doors of the school with “Redthorn Academy” emblazoned on the glass in scarlet. My hand traced the outline of a stone on the courtyard wall and I sat down. I opened my notebook.
Still the first day of school. I’m the first one in the courtyard. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It’s so quiet. I really wish someone would show up. Since spring, they’ve added a koi pond to the courtyard, which I don’t think will last long because in my experience, the ninth grade class boys like to torture animals.
Speaking of boys, one entered the courtyard. And my wish to have someone show up backfired, big time.
The corner of my eye caught him before he’d even seen me. Even then, it was too late to hide.
"Hi, Zoe," said the all-too familiar voice.
I sighed loudly, not bothering to hide it. It's not that I'm mean to Bondivitsky. In fact, I'm probably ten million times nicer than a lot of other people are to him. Most people have already given up on being kind to him. It's harder than you'd expect.
Bondivitsky was born with a completely normal, non-weird last name: Thomas. There's nothing wrong with Thomas. But then his parents had to go and name him Bondivitsky. That's not even a real name. I guess his parents are odd. Anyway, he's really dorky. The glasses he wears are the massive kind that some movie stars wear to look stylish and edgy… but it is NOT the same effect with him. He can't start a conversation without mentioning Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pokemon, or some other nerdy obsession he's got. I have to admit I like some of these things too, but I'm controlled about it. He won't stop, ever. That's how people started calling him "Dumbledork." Everyone calls him that. It's actually sort of kind, considering his real name is worse. He writes poetry and tries to talk about deep metaphorical stuff when he just sounds abnormal. When he isn't talking about some Japanese fantasy video game world, he's talking about some obscure, unknown heavy metal or punk or classical artist from Europe. He’s also really jumpy and hyper, like a little dog that always likes to jump up on people. He’s really smart- too smart for his own good, practically a genius. Sometimes he starts talking in Spanish or French because he thinks it makes him sound cool. But he's really just annoying.
The worst part of it (at least for me) is that every so often he finds a new girl to "like". In his case, this means "stalk". Okay, maybe not “stalk,” but definitely “follows around and won’t leave, EVER”. A year ago, it was Brianna. Around December he switched to this beautiful social butterfly, Gabrielle. No luck there either, obviously. In March he liked a giggly, annoying girl named Izzy. I thought that might be his first chance, since they're both irksome. But, no, it didn't work. And so last May, Bondivitsky "Dumbledork" Thomas started liking me.
He kept following me around on my way to class and writing me his strange poems. Luckily, I was able to escape this when summer came around… he doesn't know where I live. But here I was, at school again, and just when I had almost forgotten his existence, he was back.
"Hi," I muttered, “Bondivitsky.”
"It’s actually Bond now.” I wondered how no one had thought of that before. “Um, how was your holiday? I mean, your escape? Uh- your leave. Vacation…" he stuttered.
"Summer," I finished. "My summer was fine." I noticed that he was wearing all black, with silver chain-ish jewelry. Great, he’s gone Goth. And his black hair was all long and emo-style. He’s mixed up.
"Oh," he said, trying to recover and almost dropping a book in the thought process. "That's spectacular. My summer was good too. I went to the G13 Convention in Orlando, and that was the best, but I went to some poetry thing at the bookstore every other week, and that was cool too. My mom went to Scandinavia and she saw Uber Thot at a café and she got his autograph and she gave it to me and…"
He also likes to ramble.
"…and the pudding wasn't that good there, but sometimes the chefs get tired I guess,” Dumbledork said, finally stopping to take a breath. Then he hit it into Spanish mode. "Donde esta el bano?" he asked with a bizarre accent that couldn't possibly be Spanish.
"You know where the bathroom is; you've been going to this school your whole academic life, minus elementary school."
"Oh." He stared off into space for a second, as if considering something. He shrugged, which might have been a nonchalant gesture if he hadn’t been rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet as if it pained him to stand still.
Suddenly I saw a purple car pulling around the bend. Tatiana’s car! And Tatiana was Brianna’s older sister. I’d just gone from unlucky to lucky in a span of one second.
“It’s Brianna,” I said, standing up. “Uh, excuse me, Bondiv- I mean, um, Bond.”
“Yeah.”
I speed-walked to the gates (I am the Queen of Speed-Walking when I want to be) and smiled at her as Brianna got scanned. She let out a short squeal and waved her free hand.
“ZOE!" Brianna exclaimed.
"Brianna!" I said with a smile as she skipped down the walk.
Brianna grinned and gave me a running-start hug. I'm not much for those, but it was Brianna and therefore I had been expecting it. After a moment she pulled back and flipped her ponytail over one shoulder. "Sorry I didn't see you over the summer. I know I said I would."
"It's okay. It's really amazing you got to go to that dance school in New York.” Brianna was an amazingly talented and dedicated dancer. Sometimes it even made me jealous. But only sometimes.
“I know, right?” she said. “It was so fun. I wish you danced.”
I laughed at that. “Oh, yes, because I just looooove the spotlight.”
She punched me lightly in the arm. “Whatever. How did you get along? What's this summer been like for the daughter of world-famous actress, Logan Shadow?"
I groaned inwardly. Brianna always mentions how famous my mom is just to annoy me. And it works. Sometimes I wish that my mom didn't get so much hype with every little thing she did. "Oh, it was fine. I was in the Bahamas for two weeks. But my mom didn’t come. It was just Ashlinn and I.”
"Ashlinn's nice," Brianna said.
"True that. But hanging around here is okay with me."
"Yeah," Brianna agreed. "It's a vacation in itself, if you're the daughter of-"
"Please don't!" I said, letting a grin slip out. It was irritating but it was still very Brianna and I'd missed her. I'd missed Redthorn, too. For some reason, I'd always liked school better than summer. I think it's because there's so much happening at school- so many people doing things, saying things, et cetera. The worst thing is if I get stuck at home. Home is a pretty extensive place, but there's not much to see. I'm not great at relaxing. “Oh, and I found a secret passageway.”
“Where?”
“In my house.”
“No way!” Brianna said, but she totally believed it.
“Yes way. I’ll show you after school if you want.”
She shook her head. “My mom wants to take us to MyHouse tonight-“
“Yay,” I said with a slow grin that could’ve come off as “evil,” but was actually just “ecstatic”.
“Yep, and you should also come to my dance practice after school, ‘kay?”
I nodded. “Sure, I’ll text Ashlinn.”
“Okay,” she went on, “and… wait! NO! HOW ARE YOU TEXTING ASHLINN?”
“My new phone,” I explained slyly, whipping a green touch screen out of my backpack.
“YOUR MOM GOT YOU A PHONE?” yelled the still-screaming girl standing next to me.
“Uh-huh. From the twenty-first century and everything!”
“That’s so cool. Why didn’t you text me in New York?”
“I just got this last night. So I thought I’d surprise you.”
“I love surprises,” she admitted. We both knew this well. In the fourth grade she had thrown her own surprise party. It goes without saying that it wasn’t really the same effect.
I narrowed my eyebrows and looked closely at her. “Wow, and I thought your hair couldn’t get any longer.”
Brianna smiled and did a twirl. Her dirty-blonde, super-straight hair came all the way down to her waistline. It was held back in a low ponytail. In the sixth grade, a famous dancer had told her that she loved the way her long hair moved in her dance, and ever since, Brianna has grown it out. Unlike me, Brianna likes it when people see her. When she gets noticed. She usually does. Today, her sparkling blue eyes were accented by the blue clips in her hair. She was wearing a red T-shirt that said “Milan” on it and a black bubble skirt with a shiny silver hem. Her red plaid kicks matched her bag perfectly and her makeup was flawless.
Yeah, Brianna and me are so different that I don’t even know how we’re friends. I guess it’s a balancing act. I’m too quiet, she’s too loud. But, hey, why break something that works?
People began streaming into the courtyard. I know a lot of people fairly well, if not too closely, and before long we had a circle of eighth grade girls swapping summer stories.
The students began to file in more rapidly until we were in a sea of sixth through twelfth graders. It was just like normal… sixth graders gaping at the grandeur of everything, best friends reuniting, the occasional teacher pushing their way through the ocean of people.
I was listening to Bella Fitzgerald (who chokes on mints almost every gym class, but never learns her lesson) talk about her time in Britain and show off her well-practiced accent when I saw Dr. Professor walk past me, whistling “Here Comes the Bride.” That meant that there was about ten minutes left until school started. Dr. Professor was the longest staying teacher at Redthorn and he always arrived precisely ten minutes before he had to be teaching a class. He was a human clock, and he always whistled. I know people. Knowing is easy.
Other things are hard.
Suddenly an earsplitting noise rippled through the air. You know, the good kind of earsplitting that multiple people just love to hear? That one.
Kendall.
Okay, so I haven’t thought about him for most of the summer. I’m not boy crazy. But everyone has to have someone to enter their fantasies from time to time. Kendall is that way for me.
He was sitting on the edge of the koi pond with his emerald green electric guitar plugged into a portable amp. His music was loud and maybe obnoxious, but mostly just really, really good.
Kendall has green eyes just like mine and blonde hair. He’s in a band and also in the archery club. Last year, his locker was right next to mine, and we’d gotten along fine, just friends. For some reason, he was harder to know than other people. He covered his tracks when everyone else just left them for someone to see. Maybe that was why he was intriguing.
“Shut that guitar up!” a voice called from the gate.
Bizarre choice of words, I mused as I turned around. It was an adult, most likely a teacher. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with jet black hair and dark eyes. Usually it’s hard to notice eye color from such a distance. But his eyes were so dark that it was hard not to see, like a black hole. He looked tired, but also menacing, like you should try very, very hard not to get on his bad side.
He strode up to Kendall and ripped the guitar from his grasp with more force than necessary, like he didn’t really know his own strength. “You can retrieve this at the end of the day, in my office, the principal’s office. I’m assuming you would know where that is.” He took the guitar and the amp and went away in distaste.
There was actually nothing in the school rules that said you couldn’t play a guitar in the courtyard, but no one seemed to have had the courage to tell him that. It was a few long seconds before the hum of activity returned to the courtyard.
“Who was that?” Katherine Barnes asked. She was a funny, sarcastic sort of person who liked to pull pranks on her friends and enemies alike.
“No clue,” I said.
“I do,” Lorelei Ray said with a slow smile. She’s nice and quiet, but she can’t keep a secret, and everyone calls her Li. “It’s Mr. Witt. He’s our new principal.”
“How do you know?” Brianna asked.
“My mom’s a teacher this year; she’ll be teaching our science.”
“Really?” Bella said. “Is your mom cool, or weird?”
“Both.”
The bell rang and everyone made for the doors like they had a rabid dog chasing them. I melted into the crowd and moved with it, towards the doors. The routine for first days is to get your schedule and find your classes, hopefully without getting lost. But the school is huge and usually there’s a great deal of getting lost.
Okay, so you know when you feel like someone is watching you? It’s a common feeling, but usually it’s not a reliable one. I was getting that feeling. And this time, it was all too reliable.
Mr. Witt was watching me with black-hole-eyes.
And it’s an upscale small town, too. It’s got huge houses like ours and really trendy shops for every want and need. Plus, it’s got Redthorn Academy, California’s first “improved learning” private school and one of the most expensive schools in the country. My school.
It came into sight as Ashlinn maneuvered the Ferrari out of Solstice Lane and onto Lock Road. The school grounds were extensive, taking up a ginormous diamond of land. The school itself was right in the center, and pretty impressive to look at. It’s gigantic and modern-looking, built out of a glittery-looking stone called mica. There’s a half-circle drive that goes from the road to the huge silver gates and back to the road again. Ashlinn steered into the drive, humming cheerfully.
“See you later,” she said in a sing-song voice.
“Yep.” I got out of the car and counted the eighteen security cameras hidden in bushes, trees, statues, and flowers. I quickly located a nineteenth, new one in the newly installed water fountain right away. Like I said, I notice things.
Redthorn is a very secure school. You can’t get in unless you’re supposed to, and you can’t get out unless you’re supposed to. For lack of a better analogy, it’s sort of like a prison, except infinitely more fun to be in. The security cameras are just the beginning.
I walked up to the left side of the gates, where there was a small rectangular panel about the size of a football. There were three selections on the touch screen: faculty, student, and visitor. I tapped “student”.
The screen went green and I pressed my left hand to the surprisingly cool surface. There was a faint hurrrrr-ing noise, and then the screen flashed. I took my hand away to reveal the word “accepted”. Then, I did the same with my right hand.
“Are you Shadow, Zoe?” the screen now read. A tiny rod with a little microphone on the end came out of the panel. A lie detector.
“Yes,” I said quite truthfully into the microphone.
The gates opened and I stepped through. All of this had happened quickly, in a span of less than six seconds. Usually there was a small line to get clearance, but today I was early.
Actually, by the looks of the empty courtyard, I was the first one in. The courtyard was large and beautiful, big enough to host the whole student body. It felt so weird when it was empty. I like crowds, where I don’t stand out, where it’s easier to blend in.
I walked toward a bench slowly, taking everything in… the lush plants, the scattered ebony benches, the doors of the school with “Redthorn Academy” emblazoned on the glass in scarlet. My hand traced the outline of a stone on the courtyard wall and I sat down. I opened my notebook.
Still the first day of school. I’m the first one in the courtyard. I don’t think that’s ever happened before. It’s so quiet. I really wish someone would show up. Since spring, they’ve added a koi pond to the courtyard, which I don’t think will last long because in my experience, the ninth grade class boys like to torture animals.
Speaking of boys, one entered the courtyard. And my wish to have someone show up backfired, big time.
The corner of my eye caught him before he’d even seen me. Even then, it was too late to hide.
"Hi, Zoe," said the all-too familiar voice.
I sighed loudly, not bothering to hide it. It's not that I'm mean to Bondivitsky. In fact, I'm probably ten million times nicer than a lot of other people are to him. Most people have already given up on being kind to him. It's harder than you'd expect.
Bondivitsky was born with a completely normal, non-weird last name: Thomas. There's nothing wrong with Thomas. But then his parents had to go and name him Bondivitsky. That's not even a real name. I guess his parents are odd. Anyway, he's really dorky. The glasses he wears are the massive kind that some movie stars wear to look stylish and edgy… but it is NOT the same effect with him. He can't start a conversation without mentioning Star Trek, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Pokemon, or some other nerdy obsession he's got. I have to admit I like some of these things too, but I'm controlled about it. He won't stop, ever. That's how people started calling him "Dumbledork." Everyone calls him that. It's actually sort of kind, considering his real name is worse. He writes poetry and tries to talk about deep metaphorical stuff when he just sounds abnormal. When he isn't talking about some Japanese fantasy video game world, he's talking about some obscure, unknown heavy metal or punk or classical artist from Europe. He’s also really jumpy and hyper, like a little dog that always likes to jump up on people. He’s really smart- too smart for his own good, practically a genius. Sometimes he starts talking in Spanish or French because he thinks it makes him sound cool. But he's really just annoying.
The worst part of it (at least for me) is that every so often he finds a new girl to "like". In his case, this means "stalk". Okay, maybe not “stalk,” but definitely “follows around and won’t leave, EVER”. A year ago, it was Brianna. Around December he switched to this beautiful social butterfly, Gabrielle. No luck there either, obviously. In March he liked a giggly, annoying girl named Izzy. I thought that might be his first chance, since they're both irksome. But, no, it didn't work. And so last May, Bondivitsky "Dumbledork" Thomas started liking me.
He kept following me around on my way to class and writing me his strange poems. Luckily, I was able to escape this when summer came around… he doesn't know where I live. But here I was, at school again, and just when I had almost forgotten his existence, he was back.
"Hi," I muttered, “Bondivitsky.”
"It’s actually Bond now.” I wondered how no one had thought of that before. “Um, how was your holiday? I mean, your escape? Uh- your leave. Vacation…" he stuttered.
"Summer," I finished. "My summer was fine." I noticed that he was wearing all black, with silver chain-ish jewelry. Great, he’s gone Goth. And his black hair was all long and emo-style. He’s mixed up.
"Oh," he said, trying to recover and almost dropping a book in the thought process. "That's spectacular. My summer was good too. I went to the G13 Convention in Orlando, and that was the best, but I went to some poetry thing at the bookstore every other week, and that was cool too. My mom went to Scandinavia and she saw Uber Thot at a café and she got his autograph and she gave it to me and…"
He also likes to ramble.
"…and the pudding wasn't that good there, but sometimes the chefs get tired I guess,” Dumbledork said, finally stopping to take a breath. Then he hit it into Spanish mode. "Donde esta el bano?" he asked with a bizarre accent that couldn't possibly be Spanish.
"You know where the bathroom is; you've been going to this school your whole academic life, minus elementary school."
"Oh." He stared off into space for a second, as if considering something. He shrugged, which might have been a nonchalant gesture if he hadn’t been rolling back and forth on the balls of his feet as if it pained him to stand still.
Suddenly I saw a purple car pulling around the bend. Tatiana’s car! And Tatiana was Brianna’s older sister. I’d just gone from unlucky to lucky in a span of one second.
“It’s Brianna,” I said, standing up. “Uh, excuse me, Bondiv- I mean, um, Bond.”
“Yeah.”
I speed-walked to the gates (I am the Queen of Speed-Walking when I want to be) and smiled at her as Brianna got scanned. She let out a short squeal and waved her free hand.
“ZOE!" Brianna exclaimed.
"Brianna!" I said with a smile as she skipped down the walk.
Brianna grinned and gave me a running-start hug. I'm not much for those, but it was Brianna and therefore I had been expecting it. After a moment she pulled back and flipped her ponytail over one shoulder. "Sorry I didn't see you over the summer. I know I said I would."
"It's okay. It's really amazing you got to go to that dance school in New York.” Brianna was an amazingly talented and dedicated dancer. Sometimes it even made me jealous. But only sometimes.
“I know, right?” she said. “It was so fun. I wish you danced.”
I laughed at that. “Oh, yes, because I just looooove the spotlight.”
She punched me lightly in the arm. “Whatever. How did you get along? What's this summer been like for the daughter of world-famous actress, Logan Shadow?"
I groaned inwardly. Brianna always mentions how famous my mom is just to annoy me. And it works. Sometimes I wish that my mom didn't get so much hype with every little thing she did. "Oh, it was fine. I was in the Bahamas for two weeks. But my mom didn’t come. It was just Ashlinn and I.”
"Ashlinn's nice," Brianna said.
"True that. But hanging around here is okay with me."
"Yeah," Brianna agreed. "It's a vacation in itself, if you're the daughter of-"
"Please don't!" I said, letting a grin slip out. It was irritating but it was still very Brianna and I'd missed her. I'd missed Redthorn, too. For some reason, I'd always liked school better than summer. I think it's because there's so much happening at school- so many people doing things, saying things, et cetera. The worst thing is if I get stuck at home. Home is a pretty extensive place, but there's not much to see. I'm not great at relaxing. “Oh, and I found a secret passageway.”
“Where?”
“In my house.”
“No way!” Brianna said, but she totally believed it.
“Yes way. I’ll show you after school if you want.”
She shook her head. “My mom wants to take us to MyHouse tonight-“
“Yay,” I said with a slow grin that could’ve come off as “evil,” but was actually just “ecstatic”.
“Yep, and you should also come to my dance practice after school, ‘kay?”
I nodded. “Sure, I’ll text Ashlinn.”
“Okay,” she went on, “and… wait! NO! HOW ARE YOU TEXTING ASHLINN?”
“My new phone,” I explained slyly, whipping a green touch screen out of my backpack.
“YOUR MOM GOT YOU A PHONE?” yelled the still-screaming girl standing next to me.
“Uh-huh. From the twenty-first century and everything!”
“That’s so cool. Why didn’t you text me in New York?”
“I just got this last night. So I thought I’d surprise you.”
“I love surprises,” she admitted. We both knew this well. In the fourth grade she had thrown her own surprise party. It goes without saying that it wasn’t really the same effect.
I narrowed my eyebrows and looked closely at her. “Wow, and I thought your hair couldn’t get any longer.”
Brianna smiled and did a twirl. Her dirty-blonde, super-straight hair came all the way down to her waistline. It was held back in a low ponytail. In the sixth grade, a famous dancer had told her that she loved the way her long hair moved in her dance, and ever since, Brianna has grown it out. Unlike me, Brianna likes it when people see her. When she gets noticed. She usually does. Today, her sparkling blue eyes were accented by the blue clips in her hair. She was wearing a red T-shirt that said “Milan” on it and a black bubble skirt with a shiny silver hem. Her red plaid kicks matched her bag perfectly and her makeup was flawless.
Yeah, Brianna and me are so different that I don’t even know how we’re friends. I guess it’s a balancing act. I’m too quiet, she’s too loud. But, hey, why break something that works?
People began streaming into the courtyard. I know a lot of people fairly well, if not too closely, and before long we had a circle of eighth grade girls swapping summer stories.
The students began to file in more rapidly until we were in a sea of sixth through twelfth graders. It was just like normal… sixth graders gaping at the grandeur of everything, best friends reuniting, the occasional teacher pushing their way through the ocean of people.
I was listening to Bella Fitzgerald (who chokes on mints almost every gym class, but never learns her lesson) talk about her time in Britain and show off her well-practiced accent when I saw Dr. Professor walk past me, whistling “Here Comes the Bride.” That meant that there was about ten minutes left until school started. Dr. Professor was the longest staying teacher at Redthorn and he always arrived precisely ten minutes before he had to be teaching a class. He was a human clock, and he always whistled. I know people. Knowing is easy.
Other things are hard.
Suddenly an earsplitting noise rippled through the air. You know, the good kind of earsplitting that multiple people just love to hear? That one.
Kendall.
Okay, so I haven’t thought about him for most of the summer. I’m not boy crazy. But everyone has to have someone to enter their fantasies from time to time. Kendall is that way for me.
He was sitting on the edge of the koi pond with his emerald green electric guitar plugged into a portable amp. His music was loud and maybe obnoxious, but mostly just really, really good.
Kendall has green eyes just like mine and blonde hair. He’s in a band and also in the archery club. Last year, his locker was right next to mine, and we’d gotten along fine, just friends. For some reason, he was harder to know than other people. He covered his tracks when everyone else just left them for someone to see. Maybe that was why he was intriguing.
“Shut that guitar up!” a voice called from the gate.
Bizarre choice of words, I mused as I turned around. It was an adult, most likely a teacher. He appeared to be in his early thirties, with jet black hair and dark eyes. Usually it’s hard to notice eye color from such a distance. But his eyes were so dark that it was hard not to see, like a black hole. He looked tired, but also menacing, like you should try very, very hard not to get on his bad side.
He strode up to Kendall and ripped the guitar from his grasp with more force than necessary, like he didn’t really know his own strength. “You can retrieve this at the end of the day, in my office, the principal’s office. I’m assuming you would know where that is.” He took the guitar and the amp and went away in distaste.
There was actually nothing in the school rules that said you couldn’t play a guitar in the courtyard, but no one seemed to have had the courage to tell him that. It was a few long seconds before the hum of activity returned to the courtyard.
“Who was that?” Katherine Barnes asked. She was a funny, sarcastic sort of person who liked to pull pranks on her friends and enemies alike.
“No clue,” I said.
“I do,” Lorelei Ray said with a slow smile. She’s nice and quiet, but she can’t keep a secret, and everyone calls her Li. “It’s Mr. Witt. He’s our new principal.”
“How do you know?” Brianna asked.
“My mom’s a teacher this year; she’ll be teaching our science.”
“Really?” Bella said. “Is your mom cool, or weird?”
“Both.”
The bell rang and everyone made for the doors like they had a rabid dog chasing them. I melted into the crowd and moved with it, towards the doors. The routine for first days is to get your schedule and find your classes, hopefully without getting lost. But the school is huge and usually there’s a great deal of getting lost.
Okay, so you know when you feel like someone is watching you? It’s a common feeling, but usually it’s not a reliable one. I was getting that feeling. And this time, it was all too reliable.
Mr. Witt was watching me with black-hole-eyes.